lmfao

@non_nothing everyone on this forum needs to make their own thread to answer any question lmao.

@Shan I haven't reduced my very high anxiety to anything close to the ideal level but I feel it improving now. In the past I've had panic attacks where I hyperventilate for 30 mins straight and have had a few times where I frantically search the Internet on methods for suicide. The best thing I think you can do is mindful suffering. Suffering which is done mindfully is best done when you're meditating or something. Being mindful of suffering in your day to day life is hard unless you're consciousness is already high enough to try to be. Yesterday I was meditating for 1hr for example, and I was trying to maintain most of my posture. In my mine came up these thoughts "I want to escape I want to escape I want to escape I want to escape.... It hurts It hurts It hurts.." but through meditation you force both your conscious and subconscious mind to react differently to pain. There were times yesterday when my conscious mind was trying to be okay and accepting the pain, realising that a sensation in your consciousness is neither inherently good or bad. But despite this my subconscious mind was in overdrive, providing so much resistance. But throughout the session my resistance was dissolving as mindfulness increased. Meditation when done right is good for general happiness and anxiety. You're confronting your bodies fight or flight response "I want to escape I want to escape I want to escape" and are dissolving it. Your anxiety will also start to fade as you pay attention deeply to what this "I" that wants to escape is. The way I see it, you can conceptualise anxiety as an over the top reaction to some "negative" circumstance. And you want to rewire those reactions.

@DnoReally I mean it depends what you mean by "atheism" right? If atheism is the lack of belief in a god, isn't an enlightened person an atheist because they don't believe in the concept labelled "God"?

@kieranperez this reminds of people who say "you don't need to do any consciousness work just become enlightened right now, you already are it". And whilst it might be technically true, untill a solid commitment is made to raising your consciousness you're gonna stay being miserable. At least that's my experience. Buddha and prophets in the bible/quran had the commitment to go off in solitude to meditate for long periods of time.

@Andreas I'm inclined to think it is bullshit. I think they could exist but I see no reason nor had any experience to think they exist. I know Leo and others on this forum are inclined to think that paranormal/supernatural phenomenon are real, but I've never seen any proof/evidence of it. Why wouldn't people with these powers show (scientists) /(the world)? They would get money for it and even enlightened people do things for money.A supernatural phenomena such as levitation would have most likely been public knowledge by now. This is also true for other supernatural phenomena which impact the external world in an easily observable way. Is the evidence for supernatural phenomenon so subtle that it evades acknowledgement of scientists? Or are scientists denying objective evidence? Do these "supernatural" phenomenon not have an impact on the physical world ( and are only detected subjectively in one person's consciousness) and hence do not have any observational give aways to other people? If the answer to the last question is yes, then what's the point in discussing these phenomena? Does it not just fall into the category of mystical experiences/feelings then?

"And so you have to realise to what an enormous extent we are all utterly bewitched by words and are trying all our lives long to solve problems which only words create because the human being has gotten himself into a very funny bind."

This is gonna be a long thread. I'm going to copy and paste some text for the "Context to my question" and for "my social experiences in school". I hope that these sections help you build a picture of me. Context to my question I understand very little about why my experiences happened the way they did, and I can't figure out what I was chasing after back then and what I'm chasing after now. Whilst the details of my memories aren't incredibly sharp in terms of precise mundane details, I have a very detailed and rich memory of important phases of my life during high school and the underlying emotions I felt at the time. Although I say that I understand very little about my past it's probably the case that I understand a lot about my experiences, it's just that I don't want to accept and confront the fact that I've always felt like an alien/outsider in my interactions with people. The feeling of being misunderstood and lonely, subtly yet strongly, permeates all of my experiences from when I was 4 years old to now when I am 18. It might be worth noting that I'm an INTP who suffers from anxiety/depression, and I've got a parent mother who was/is abusive to me (to only describe the relationship with the word "abusive" wouldn't accurately convey the nuanced situation however). My mum can very paranoid and holds delusional suspicions (which are not targeted at me), and I have a strong family history of psychosis and other mental illnesses from my mother's side of the family. My dad has depression. My parents have always been arguing. I likely have some autistic traits which I have inhereted from my mum, but I would probably be what you call "high functioning". My social experiences in school I'll talk a bit about my experiences, by first starting with primary school [ which I was in when aged 4-11 years old]. For reasons unbeknownst to me, I was a very shy kid by the time I was 4. Apparently I was very late to speak as a baby, which is maybe a consequence of autism. From the very start of primary school, I was mildly bullied and was socially excluded. Although I can't pinpoint a reason for this, I think this happened because of the fact I behaved strangely as a child. Although I behaved strangely, it was far from being malicious or violent. There was also a racial component to this, as I have a distinct memory of older kids calling me "chocolate bar" but I'd respond with "milky way" (a white chocolate brand). My name is Mujtaba so they got the idea of chocolate bar from adding an "r" to the "ba" component of my name, very funny and peculiar actually. By the age of 6-7, the bullying stopped and as I mildly gained the respect of people around me. Around the age of 7 I naturally developed a very strong interest in maths, and this has stuck with me for life. It was something I was constantly praised for by adults. Thankfully I wasn't bullied for this at all in primary school. Even after I stopped being bullied, I was at the bottom of the "social hierarchy". I was often peoples last choice for playing games with, and it felt as though I had to always make an effort to fit in and get people to play with me. I finished high school at age 11. I didn't stay in touch with anyone from primary school. At age 11 I then entered a private high school. When my first year started, I found that I was being popular for reasons I didn't understand. It might be because I was blunt and would tell offensive but funny jokes, and represented a paradox of maturity and immaturity. I was really good at tackling people in rugby even though I was short, and so the sporty kids loved me for that. I was friends with the "jocks" and "the nerds" at the same time. I was tired of being a nerd during earlier points in my life, so I tried to fit in with the cool kids. However, they weren't really on my wavelength at all. Some relationships aren't meant to be. I found them to be superficial and shallow beyond belief. They shared different hobbies from me for the most part. They were allowed to have girlfriends whilst I have had the opposite sex demonised to me because of my upbringing. The "cool kids" detected that I wasn't on their wavelength as well, but I maintained a casual relationship with them for two years. Although I interacted with the cool kids, it was the "nerds" who were my real homies. I just went to the "cool kids" temporarily if they were doing some fun activity like playing football or rugby. Something at the centre of my being rejected everything about the way the "jocks" acted. They were arrogant, genuinely malicious at times, and wanted to put whoever they could down around them. During my second year of high school I developed a major crush for someone, but I couldn't pursue anything because of my religion. She was really good looking and gave me signals (e.g. She was touching my leg repeatedly with her foot under the table) , but I never did anything. This led to me having great frustration. I ended up question religion as a whole during my adolescence, and I became an atheist at age 13/14. And for the first two years of high school, I had two close friends. These two guys happened to be the two highest academic achievers in all subjects, whilst I only "shined" in maths and science. Despite this, we had many similar interests and fun playing games with each other. They were on my wavelength. After two years, I had drifted away from the cool kids. After two years my loneliness started to grow. When interacting with the vast vast majority of people I felt like an outsider. During my third year of high school, I fell down the dominance hierarchy, quickly spiralling down towards the bottom. During my third year of school, people were put into different classes of "ability". I was separated from my friends for science classes because I never bothered to study. One of the two close friends I had started drifting away to hang out with the girls, and I didn't follow him. I was too awkward and my religion hindered me. Plus the girls he choose to hang out with were unpleasant, gossipy people. I had just one friend left, and I didn't end up seeing him too often. This friend that I had left was Asian and Muslim like me, (unsurprisingly?). My interests were in discussing philisophy, religion, science, psychology, politics and etc but nobody elses were. Whether it was sitting in classes, eating lunch, and walking to classes, I was lonely. Rooms would be full with multiple cliques (nerds, normals, jocks, etc) of people talking loudly, I would be awkwardly at the side. I watched from the sidelines everyone enjoy their life. Hung out with nerds, but didn't really feel connected to them. As high school went on, my loneliness grew and grew. During my 6-7th years of high school my classes became small and I was mostly interacting with nerds all the time. I took only science subjects and maths, and I had my friends in these classes. My curiosity for maths and science really bloomed during these times, and people were shocked at how "intelligent" I was because my grades aren't usually good. I went to a private school filled with people who were very competitive and hardworking academically. I have a circle of 10 "friends" and some of them were envious of me and put me down for my interest in maths. Most of the teachers were unable to answer the questions I asked them, and whenever I tried discussing something I find really interesting in maths/physics with my friends I would get cut off, because they perceived my interest and enthusiasm for the abstract as a form of showing off. If I ever go full loose in showing my train of thought to people, they are sometimes spiteful and look at me as weird. And so I naturally became more and more lonely, as I felt rejected by everyone around me. On a side note, I hate the way information is taught in school, and that demotivated me from learning and growing as much as I could. My question Even now, after moving to university to study physics I haven't met anyone whom I connect with. I've had better conversation with my university professors than I have with my "friends"/acquaintances. What's the best approach for me? Do I have to just face the loneliness head on and keep doing consciousness work? I feel so tempermentally different from everyone around that I just can't connect with anyone. Ive been deprived of human connection for so, so long that the loneliness just hits hard. Must I bite the bullet and go full zen to overcome my own demons?

@John Lula Hearing someone complain about too much conscientiousness offends me to the same degree that a starving African child is offended by hearing a middle aged white women complain that her steak is slightly too cold. It doesn't actually offend me, the last paragraph I typed was just something that popped in my mind. Damn my humour is dry.

@EternalForest The thing that "Non-duality" is trying to point to is an experience beyond words and language, and "Non-duality" itself is composed of words and everything I type to you is words. Quite funny eh? Are all the words I type to you completely void of meaning? Who knows?!

@Scholar It's okay dude just ignore the haters we can burn all the anti no nut November heretics.

@Nahm You win the Internet for this post. Excellent guide. JK THERE IS NO YOU, TRY HARDER NEXT TIME PLEBE.

@Roman Edouard life is a gamble, yeah. It's only at a higher consciousness perspective that this doesn't matter. Yeah I don't see the possible existence of autism to be inherently negatively. All I know is that I've struggled to fit in due to being on slightly different wavelength from people around me and one possible explanation seems to be autism. Good advice

@Mu_ cheers bruh

@Mu_ To add onto my question, I think that there are times I feel happy and content with being alone. But I feel like theres an underfed and somewhat repressed part of my psyche. Sometimes I'm happy being alone but at other times I'm just lonely. I didn't have much time to type in my previous message since I'm actually typing a lab report right now for a nearby deadline LOL.

@Mu_ It was around the third time or so that I meditated that I had an experience of no free will and no self. I was in the present moment and I realised that any action I performed (moving my head, breathing, etc) or any thoughts I had were as much me as every other facet of my consciousness (the things I see, things I hear, bodily sensations of pressure, the actions of other people, etc). I've had this feeling quite a few times now from various meditation sessions. What has really touched me from meditation is feeling that my thoughts are just as much as a part of the happening that is reality as every other part of the happening. If I'm in a higher consciousness state I'll feel the thoughts and words coming out of my mind to be vacuous and they will be no more truthful than random sounds/sights in my experience. Another thing which has really felt profound is time and perception. The past literally does not exist. I have found myself starting to see through the illusion of time when I notice that my thought about a particular thing is not that particular thing and my thoughts start to slow down as I become mindful of them. I have felt things to only be in the "now", but I wonder, what is now? I made a thread wondering how it is that perception exists if time does not exist. If I'm in a high consciousness state, I'll feel existence to be effortless. This is because for all points in my life as a conscious being, I exist in a situation which has no cause. That's because it's always now. I made a thread about this insight I felt a week ago. Even if I experience high consciousness states, my state of consciousness throughout the day/week is like a rollercoaster. At my best I'm buddha, at my worst I'm like a crack cocaine addict. I have a technology (youtube, porn, Netflix, etc) and bad food addiction which tears me down (the food addiction isn't that bad though, technology is 100x harder to quit for me). My meditation routine for the past 2 months has been garbage because I've been stressed and fatigued all the time since starting university. I used to be able to meditate for 80 mins and now I can barely do 45 mins.

@Mu_ The only spiritual practice I've done is meditation. I started January this year, but my meditation routine for the past 2 months has been bad but its recently picked up again. I've had enlightenment experiences. That's about it.

@Emerald Thank you!

Today was the first time I ever tried anything analagous to "pick up". I sat down next to this nerdy (but good looking) Jewish girl on a train who was 20 (I'm 18) and she was playing a random mobile game so the conversation started there. We were both going to the same city since we were students in the same university. Talked with her for an hour. I went outside of my comfort zone quite a bit, since I'm usually very shy infront of other girls. Turns out shes obsessed with MBTI, was interested in having deep conversations. I was attracted to her. I interpreted signals of interest from her since she was quite enthusiastic when talking. I asked her if she wanted to chill or do anything, after I'd walked outside of the train station with her. She said no . I am thankful for the practice/confidence I got at the very least. So my question is directed at the guys here. How many times have you gotten rejected when asking people out? Are the odds quite bad?

@Emerald yeah, 20 per day is a no go. Its probably impossible for me to do that in my day-to-day life. A few per week though sounds alright. I feel bad for that guy you talked about lol. I find it difficult to pick up on social ques as well lol, making this process harder. Right now I'm just flirting with the idea of a relationships, but I feel very pessimistic about the whole thing. I'm an INTP who only enjoys talking about maths, physics, philosophy, psychology, politics... Etc and besides that the only thing which interests me is Eastern spirituality. I just feel like I'm on a different temperamental level from everyone around me, e. G. I'll have better conversations with my university professors then I do with my acquaintances. Sustained periods of loneliness in my life has made me skeptical that I'll ever find people I connect with. Edit: Even if I were to cold approach girls, my only accomplashible objective is likely sex since I doubt I will find anyone on the same wavelength as me.

@Emerald I just read the note you added. I hate clubbing with a passion. Its full of drunk retards awkwardly dancing to trashy songs.

IT WAS WORTH A SHOT, LOL. You don't look old Good point. Thank you for the response (all jokes aside).

@Emerald thanks for the response. You gave quite the guide there. So cold approaches don't work out that well on a case by case basis. If women were to cold approach men, they would succeed. I think this is a consequence of women finding it easier to get partners. The way males and females form attractions is different as well. I mean right now, I don't know if I want hook ups or an actual relationships. I just have urges for affection and sex. Stronger urges for just intamcy. So if I approach 20 women a day I'll probably find someone after 1 and a half weeks. Today I've approached 1, maybe you can be my second? ?

@now is forever (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ Matthew 21:12 (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ Just call me Jesus

That's true. It seems as though the phallus was the more powerful decision maker than the brain. At the time I felt convinced she'd go out with me because she seemed very engaged and interested when talking to me (from my perspective anyway). Seems that she was passionate about the contents of the discussion rather than being passionate "about me" . Is it bad that I feel quite deflated lol